OPD officer Karen Long: 'The reality is, I have cancer'

Three hours after her plane landed in Germany, Officer Karen Long had already checked in at the Special Hospital of Dr. Herzog in the small town of Bad Salzhausen.

She and her husband William, who both work for the Orlando Police Department, made the 5,000-mile journey in early September to start a bout of treatment that she hopes will cure her stage-four metastatic breast cancer.

"I was scared going into the unknown," Long said, after returning to Central Florida. "There were times when I'd be in the cafeteria and look around me and I was the healthiest person there."

The hyperthermal treatment she received — which, in laymen terms, heats the cancer cells with the hope of eventually killing them — has been practiced in Germany for decades but is still in clinical trial stages in America.

Long's OPD family rallied around her and helped organize fundraisers to collect some of the more than $100,000 she needed for her trip. Because the treatment is in Germany, none of her medical or travel expenses are covered by insurance.

After months of prayer and doctor's visits, Long got some encouraging news just before she packed up to head to Germany.

"They found that they cant see the cancer in my lungs anymore, they don't know where it is," she said. "They don't see it in the lymph nodes anymore. They don't see it in the muscle under the sternum anymore and on the bone itself, it's 50 percent reduced which is unheard of. You don't get results like that without a whole lot of prayer."

She and her husband spent about three weeks in Germany — and were in the small hospital six days each week.

Long was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. She was still a newlywed and the announcement shocked her small family, but they fought back aggressively.

A double mastectomy, six months of chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiation got rid of the cancer and she was in remission for about five years before doctors told her that the cancer was back and had spread through her body.

Then Long met Stephen Gidus of Orlando. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage-four stomach cancer the year before and had surgery to remove the lining of his heart that had been infected.

Gidus told Long about the treatment he was trying in Germany.

Gidus only had a four percent chance of survival and the hyperthermal treatment and chemotherapy held the deadly disease at bay for a few month but he died Oct. 8.

"We think the Germany treatment allowed him another nine months of life and a better quality of life than traditional treatments," Tara Gidus said.

The hyperthermal treatment does not weaken the body as chemotherapy is known to.

Long said Gidus' death reminds her of her own mortality.

"It kind of brings the reality home," she said. "While I'm optimistic, it's a guarded optimism. The reality is that I have cancer."

Long's health still seems to be improving. She has plans to return to Germany on Jan. 2.